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Spears

From Diablo Wiki

The Amazon has a full skill tree devoted to Spear and Javelin skills, and her Spear and Javelin Skill Tab makes her powerful with spears, though spearazons and javazons lag behind Bowazons in overall success, due mostly to the lack of quality spear or javelin skills. Still, using a good spear with 1 point in Jab is a very good way to get a new Bowazon going, and with a decent Pike and some mana leech, any Amazon can power through normal difficulty very quickly.

Though spears and javelins are in the same weapon class, they are very different types of weapons. Javelins are throwing weapons, held one-handed, and are non-magical and non-socketable. Spears are larger, heavier, and are melee weapons which must be wielded with two hands, and may be socketable, or have a full range of magical modifiers.

Their striking speed is not as fast as smaller weapons such as swords or blunts, but they are not so slow as the massive axes or polearms, and will not have very high strength or dexterity requirements, making them useful weapons for every character class.

Larger and heavier than javelins, spears are melee weapons that do far higher damage than javelins, but can not be thrown. Spears are stabbed with from the side, and have excellent reach, able to hit monsters on the other side of a friendly player, or to stab a monster while it is still too far away to strike you.

All spears require two hands to wield them.

The Amazon can only use the melee skills from her Spear and Javelin Skill Tab with spears; the javelin/throwing skills are inaccessible while wielding this item type. The Barbarian's Spear Mastery boosts his damage and Attack Rating with spears, and he can of course use his Combat Skills such as Bash or Frenzy or Whirlwind for still higher damage.

Damage Bonus: This determines how you multiply the item damage by your stats to reach the actual damage. Each 100 points in that stat doubles your weapon's total physical damage. All Spears are 100 Str, which means every 100 points in Str doubles the weapon's total physical damage.

Item Level: Used in many in-game calculations. Monsters must be of this level to drop the item, and it factors in when you get to gamble for this item type as well. Check Mlvls on Darkness.

Weapon Speed: A relative comparison to other weapons of the same type. 0 is the base -10, -20, etc is faster, 10, 20, etc is slower, always in increments of 10. Each 10 is equivalent to an SIAS item. Characters are abbreviated to their first letter, with Am = Amazon and As = Assassin.

Range: Goes from 1 (least) to 5 (most), and is identical for all weapon types. I.E. a 3 sword = a 3 spear = a 3 hammer.

Exceptional spears are found in Nightmare and Hell in Diablo II, and late normal, and all of NM and Hell in the Expansion. Like all Exceptional weapons, they have more damage and higher requirements than normal gear.